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I moved to the couch and slumped down. It still didn’t even make sense to me. “Amelia. You were right. It was Amelia.”
Caleb covered his gaping jaw. I dropped my head into my hands.
“Oh no… Oh, fuck.” Caleb came to sit down next to me on the couch. He rubbed my back, leaning into me. His presence helped me from losing my absolute fucking mind.
“She was my best friend, and I had no idea. No clue that she was working with them. She was desperate, but did she need to go to the Crimson Ring? Why couldn’t she tell me? Ask me for help?”
“Desperate people do desperate things,” Caleb replied. “She was battling a disease that I can hardly even comprehend. It’s not right what she did, at all, but I can’t even imagine what it was like for her, turning to steel like that.”
I sank back into the couch. Lily sat at my feet. She must have sensed the pain rolling off me in waves. “I just… how? She traded her life in for all of ours. Now, they have all three paintings, although she did mention something interesting. That the painting’s were still swirls. Unless she was lying to me.”
“So… about that.” Caleb started biting his nails, smiling. “They actually only have two paintings. One of the ones you had in your horde room was a fake. Something about it felt off when I first saw it, so I was checking my notes, and I realized that the signature was wrong. There’s still a Moriarty painting out there, and I think I know where it is.”
My head fell forward, jaw slack. I blinked a couple of times before it actually sank in. I grabbed his face in both hands and pulled him in for another kiss. “You’re a fucking genius!”
“I try, I try.”
“Where’s the third painting, then?”
“I think it’s in the attic where we first met.”
I got up from the couch, holding a hand out for Caleb. He got to his feet, hand still in mine. I’d been through so fucking much these last few days, but having Caleb back at my side made everything else feel so trivial. This was all that mattered. I vowed to myself that I’d never lose him again, no matter who or what was involved.
Caleb went to grab his car keys, but I shook my head. “Let’s get there the faster way.”
“Right, let’s go,” Caleb replied. He put on the clean white sneakers by the door and gave Lily a couple of horn scratches before we left.
I flew faster than I ever had before. Caleb held on tight as I cut through the air, beating my wings against the sky. Time was of the essence. If Caleb was right about this—which I had no doubt he was—then it was imperative we get there before the Crimson Ring realized their mistake. We still had a chance to salvage this.
The apartment building was a few streets off Sunset Drive, deep in the Harmony District. I landed in the middle of the street, Caleb hopping off my back and running toward the building before I could even shift back into human form. I chased after him. We threw open the door and ran up the four flights of stairs. The apartment, which had been owned by a renowned art collector, was never sold or rented out again. The man’s wife said she wanted to keep it as is in order to preserve his memory.
But maybe there was another reason why she wanted to keep the apartment untouched?
The door was locked, and we didn’t have time to reach out to the landlord for keys. I put my hand on the doorknob and dropped the temps, the brass knob turning to solid ice in my hand. I took a step back and kicked it, the doorknob shattering to a hundred little pieces, and the door slowly swung open.
“God, you’re so hot,” Caleb said as he walked into the apartment ahead of me.
I chuckled and followed him in. The place was dusty and smelled like a collection of mothballs and some slight mildew. The furniture had been covered with white tarps, giving the illusion of ghosts haunting the vacant home. We went to the hallway leading toward the bedroom, where a string hung from the ceiling. I pulled it down and revealed the stairs leading up to the infamous attic.
I went up first, not wanting Caleb to fall into any traps on my watch. The attic was just how we had left it. Destroyed, with the window blown out, dried blood left on the floor. The bodies were gone, likely retrieved by the Crimson Ring, but did that mean they’d found the painting too? There were what seemed like hundreds of them, stacked up against each other and leaning on the walls. There was plenty of sunlight coming in from the broken wall.
